OESH La Vida v2.0 Won’t Give You Any Lip

At OESH we’re 100% dedicated to creating and manufacturing the very best possible shoe, all based on science and research. As it turns out, the new OESH La Vida v2.0, doesn’t give you any lip. Not just figuratively but literally.

What do I mean?

The “lip” of a traditional athletic shoe can be seen in the sole below:

As shown by the red arrows, a lip is formed when the sides of the sole come upward around the foot. Different than the shoe’s cradle that curves laterally beneath the foot, the lip curves the sides into a surrounding wall which can be deceiving to the eye from the outside of the shoe. This can be seen in the numerous brands of non-OESH athletic shoes available today. These typical shoes appear from the side to have a thick sole making you think that there’s a “nice thick sole” but part of that sole is actually lip. Hmmm how could I possibly show this to you? DISSECTION TIME!!

Here we have a few mug shots of shoes from popular athletic brands.

Their crime: Deceiving Soles, Major Lip
Punishment: Life sentence in the closet

One of them is innocent but how will we ever figure out the mystery?

As you can see the SIDE view of suspects #00001 and #00002 make you think that the sole starts at the red line, looks reasonable (minus the high heel) but wait, here is the clincher. The FRONT view shows that what you thought was the sole, is actually where the lip begins and the part where your foot lies starts lower, leaving that lip to “hold” your foot in place. Follow the red lines in the Front views from the middle to the ends where an outside observer would think the sole would start; now you can see the drastic difference.

Caught red-handed.

Comparable to the cradle, the lip is marketed to “support” the foot. In reality, this lip only interferes with your natural foot function, pressing inwards on the foot, and changing where you place your body weight. Rather than having room for the foot to naturally lie, the sides are pressing inwards which causes pressures on the outside of the foot and an uncomfortable fit. That can be uncomfortable as well as become painful over time and lead to future foot problems such as metatarsalgia and Morton’s Neuroma. If that weren’t enough, all that lip can affect the forces going up from the foot, artificially altering your weight distribution, causing higher torques and pressures in the joints above the foot.

This must mean suspect #0003 is innocent (as OESH always ends up as the hero of the story)! Our proprietary manufacturing process lets OESH La Vida v2.0 have a completely flat sole with no lip. As the picture shows, the outside of the La Vida sole (SIDE view) is the same height as the FRONT view, with no surrounding walls (lip) to alter forces. The foot is able to lie in its natural position for a comfortable fit.

Now that we have identified the culprits, this mission comes to an end and your journey with OESH La Vida v2.0 begins. Always remember that a great shoe has no lip! Case closed.